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children, remember this. Oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger'

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As soon as he crossed the border from Lû, we are told he discovered from the gait and manners of a boy, whom he saw carrying a pitcher, the influence of the sages' music, and told the driver of his carriage to hurry on to the capital 2. Arrived there, he heard the strain, and was so ravished with it, that for three months he did not know the taste of flesh. 'I did not think,' he said, 'that music could have been made so excellent as this 3.' The duke Ching was pleased with the conferences which he had with him, and proposed to assign to him the town of Lin-ch'iû, from the revenues of which he might derive a sufficient support; but Confucius refused the gift, and said to his disciples, 'A superior man will only receive reward for services which he has done. I have given advice to the duke Ching, but he has not yet obeyed it, and now he would endow me with this place! Very far is he from understanding me!'

On one occasion the duke asked about government, and received the characteristic reply, 'There is government when the ruler is ruler, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son.' I say that the reply is characteristic. Once, when Tsze-lû asked him what he would consider the first thing to be done if entrusted with the government of a State, Confucius answered, 'What is necessary is to rectify names". The disciple thought the reply wide of the mark, but it was substantially the same with what he said to the marquis Ching. There is a sufficient foundation in nature for government in the several relations of society, and if those be maintained and developed according to their relative significancy, it is sure to obtain. This was a first principle in the political ethics of Confucius.

Another day the duke got to a similar inquiry the reply that the art of government lay in an economical use of the revenues; and being pleased, he resumed his purpose of retaining the philosopher in his State, and proposed to assign to him the fields of Ni-ch'î. His

1 See the 家語,卷四,art正論解. I have translated, however, from the

4.

Lî Chî, II. Sect. II. iii. 10, where the same incident is given, with some variations, and without 3 Ana.

saying when or where it occurred. 2 See the 說苑,卷十九, P. 13.

VII. xiii. * Some of these are related in the 'Narratives of the School ;'-about the burning of the ancestral shrine of the sovereign, and a one-footed bird which appeared hopping and flapping its wings in Ch'î. They are plainly fabulous, though quoted in proof of Confucius's sage wisdom. This reference to them is more than enough.

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*家語,卷二,六本.

chief minister Yen Ying dissuaded him from the purpose, saying, 'Those scholars are impracticable, and cannot be imitated. They are haughty and conceited of their own views, so that they will not be content in inferior positions. They set a high value on all funeral ceremonies, give way to their grief, and will waste their property on great burials, so that they would only be injurious to the common manners. This Mr. K'ung has a thousand peculiarities. It would take generations to exhaust all that he knows about the ceremonies of going up and going down. This is not the time to examine into his rules of propriety. If you, prince, wish to employ him to change the customs of Ch'i, you will not be making the people your primary consideration 1."

I had rather believe that these were not the words of Yen Ying, but they must represent pretty correctly the sentiments of many of the statesmen of the time about Confucius. The duke of Chî got tired ere long of having such a monitor about him, and observed, 'I cannot treat him as I would the chief of the Chî family. I will treat him in a way between that accorded to the chief of the Chi, and that given to the chief of the Măng family.' Finally he said, 'I am old; I cannot use his doctrines 2.' These observations were made directly to Confucius, or came to his hearing 3. It was not consistent with his self-respect to remain longer in Ch'î, and he returned to Lû 4.

6. Returned to Lû, he remained for the long period of about fifteen years without being engaged in any official employment. It He remains was a time, indeed, of great disorder.

without office in

The duke

Lũ, B.C. 516–501. Châo continued a refugee in Ch'i, the government being in the hands of the great Families, up to his death in B. C. 510, on which event the rightful heir was set aside, and another member of the ducal House, known to us by the title of Ting, substituted in his place. The ruling authority of the principality became thus still more enfeebled than it had been before, and, on the other hand, the chiefs of the Chi, the Shû, and the Măng, could hardly keep their ground against their own officers. Of those latter, the two most conspicuous were Yang Hû, called also Yang Ho7, and

1 See the 史記,孔子世家, p. 2

2 Ana. XVIII. iii.

3 Sze-mâ Ch'ien

4 According to

makes the first observation to have been addressed directly to Confucius.

the above account Confucius was only once, and for a portion of two years, in Ch'î. For the

refutation of contrary accounts, see Chiang Yung's Life of the Sage.

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Kung-shan Fû-zâo1. At one time Chi Hwan, the most powerful of the chiefs, was kept a prisoner by Yang Hû, and was obliged to make terms with him in order to obtain his liberation. Confucius would give his countenance to none, as he disapproved of all, and he studiously kept aloof from them. Of how he comported himself among them we have a specimen in the incident related in the Analects, XVII. i.-Yang Ho wished to see Confucius, but Confucius would not go to see him. On this, he sent a present of a pig to Confucius, who, having chosen a time when Ho was not at home, went to pay his respects for the gift. He met him, however, on the way. "Come, let me speak with you," said the officer. "Can he be called benevolent, who keeps his jewel in his bosom, and leaves his country to confusion?" Confucius replied, "No." "Can he be called wise, who is anxious to be engaged in public employment, and yet is constantly losing the opportunity of being so?" Confucius again said, "No." The other added, "The days and months are passing away; the years do not wait for us." Confucius said, "Right; I will go into office."" Chinese writers are eloquent in their praises of the sage for the combination of propriety, complaisance and firmness, which they see in his behaviour in this matter. To myself there seems nothing remarkable in it but a somewhat questionable dexterity. But it was well for the fame of Confucius that his time was not occupied during those years with official services. He turned them to better account, prosecuting his researches into the poetry, history, ceremonies, and music of the nation. Many disciples continued to resort to him, and the legendary writers tell us how he employed their services in digesting the results of his studies. I must repeat, however, that several of them, whose names are most famous, such as Tsăng Shăn, were as yet children, and Min Sun 2 was not born till B. C. 500.

To this period we must refer the almost single instance which we have of the manner of Confucius's intercourse with his son Li.

'Have you heard any lessons from your father different from what we have all heard?' asked one of the disciples once of Lî. 'No,' said Li. He was standing alone once, when I was passing through the court below with hasty steps, and said to me, "Have you learned the Odes?" On my replying, "Not yet," he added, "If you do not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse with." Another day, u ti.

1

公山弗擾(史記, 狃).

in the same place and the same way, he said to me, "Have you read the rules of Propriety?" On my replying, "Not yet," he added, "If you do not learn the rules of Propriety, your character cannot be established." I have heard only these two things from him.' The disciple was delighted and observed, 'I asked one thing, and I have got three things. I have heard about the Odes. I have heard about the rules of Propriety. I have also heard that the superior man maintains a distant reserve towards his son'.'

I can easily believe that this distant reserve was the rule which Confucius followed generally in his treatment of his son. A stern dignity is the quality which a father has to maintain upon his system. It is not to be without the element of kindness, but that must never go beyond the line of propriety. There is too little room left for the play and development of natural affection.

The divorce of his wife must also have taken place during these years, if it ever took place at all, which is a disputed point. The curious reader will find the question discussed in the notes on the second Book of the Li Chi. The evidence inclines, I think, against the supposition that Confucius did put his wife away. When she died, at a period subsequent to the present, Li kept on weeping aloud for her after the period for such a demonstration of grief had expired, when Confucius sent a message to him that his sorrow must be subdued, and the obedient son dried his tears 2. We are glad to know that on one occasion-the death of his favourite disciple, Yen Hûi-the tears of Confucius himself would flow over and above the measure of propriety 3.

He holds office.
B. C. 500-496.

7. We come to the short period of Confucius's official life. In the year B. C. 501, things had come to a head between the chiefs of the three Families and their ministers, and had resulted in the defeat of the latter. In that year the resources of Yang Hû were exhausted, and he fled into Ch'î, so that the State was delivered from its greatest troubler, and the way was made more clear for Confucius to go into office, should an opportunity occur. It soon presented itself. Towards the end of that year he

was made chief magistrate of the town of Chung-tû 1.

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1 Ana. XVI. xiii. 2 See the Li Chî, II. Pt. I. i. 27. 3 Ana. XI. ix. 中都宰

Amiot says this was 'la ville même où le Souverain tenoit sa Cour' (Vie de Confucius, p. 147). He is followed of course by Thornton and Pauthier. My reading has not shown me that such was the case. In the notes to K'ang-hsî's edition of the 'Five Ching,' Lî Chî, II. Sect. I. iii. 4, it is simply said—' Chung-tû,-the name of a town of Lû. It afterwards belonged to Ch'i

when it was called P'ing-lû ().'

Just before he received this appointment, a circumstance occurred of which we do not well know what to make. When Yang-hû fled into Ch'i, Kung-shan Fû-zâo, who had been confederate with him, continued to maintain an attitude of rebellion, and held the city of Pi against the Chi family. Thence he sent a message to Confucius inviting him to join him, and the Sage seemed so inclined to go that his disciple Tsze-lû remonstrated with him, saying, 'Indeed you cannot go! why must you think of going to see Kung-shan?' Confucius replied, 'Can it be without some reason that he has invited me? If any one employ me, may I not make an eastern Châu?' The upshot, however, was that he did not go, and I cannot suppose that he had ever any serious intention of doing so. Amid the general gravity of his intercourse with his followers, there gleam out a few instances of quiet pleasantry, when he amused himself by playing with their notions about him. This was probably one of them.

As magistrate of Chung-tû he produced a marvellous reformation of the manners of the people in a short time. According to the 'Narratives of the School,' he enacted rules for the nourishing of the living and all observances to the dead. Different food was assigned to the old and the young, and different burdens to the strong and the weak. Males and females kept apart from each other in the streets. A thing dropped on the road was not picked up. There was no fraudulent carving of vessels. Inner coffins were made four inches thick, and the outer ones five. Graves were made on the high grounds, no mounds being raised over them, and no trees planted about them. Within twelve months, the princes of the other States all wished to imitate his style of administration 2.

The duke Ting, surprised at what he saw, asked whether his rules could be employed to govern a whole State, and Confucius told him that they might be applied to the whole kingdom. On this the duke appointed him assistant-superintendent of Works 3, in which capacity he surveyed the lands of the State, and made many improvements in agriculture. From this he was quickly made minister of Crime, and the appointment was enough to put an end to crime. There was no necessity to put the penal laws in execution. No offenders showed themselves ".

1 Ana. XVII. v.

*家語, Bk. I.

3

.This office, however, was held by the chief of the Mäng family. We must understand that Confucius was only an assistant to him, or perhaps acted for him.

‘大司寇‘家語, Bk. I.

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